[sdiy] What's your fav PCB package?

[Robin Whittle]

Thanks everyone for this discussion.  I think there is such an
investment in learning and developing libraries for schematic and PCB
programs that I don't want to change from one program to the next
without very good reason.  I want to keep making and refining a product
some decades later, so I don't want to have to go back to an "old"
program if I have moved to another one by that time.

A vital part of my choice would be ensuring that PCB manufacturers and
automated PCB assembly companies were happy to work with the native PCB
file format.  Theoretically I can give them Gerber files and drill files
in some format or whatever guff is needed by surface mount machines, but
I think it would be much more helpful to them if they already had the
PCB software installed on their systems, so they could see in detail
what they are supposed to be making for me, and so they can panelise
small boards into larger panels, change the design in small ways to cope
with problems at their end etc.

There are no Eagle sales outlets in Australia - so maybe it is not
widely used.  I guess each PCB and assembly company would need to have a
full copy of Eagle for my above desires to come true - since I will be
designing larger boards.  Otherwise, I would be mucking around trying to
communicate with them using large printouts and trying to craft Gerber
files and whatever else they need to suit their particular requirements.

The PCB field is exacting and finicky.  A particular photoplotter's
driver software might not be able to do a Protel hexagonal pad, so it
has to be changed to round - as my current PCB manufacturer had to do.
Also, the files I give the PCB manufacturer need to be compatible with,
or capable of producing file which are compatible with, their board
tester.  Likewise their drilling machine.  All these files have to be
produced after they panelise the design, and only they can do that
properly, because only they know the final size, or what other boards
they might want to combine it with, and what registration and drill test
holes they need to add to each panel.

The open-source idea is nice, but I can't imagine asking a PCB company
to make a board and then asking them to install and learn a complete PCB
 program, with all its cranky annoyances, just so they can make my  board.

It seems that while a few keen people do want to write open-source
schematic and PCB programs, what is really required is a program which
is a generally used workaday tool for a large fraction of the industry -
and that takes a marketing and development effort considerably beyond
that of a typical open-source operation.  (When open-source has too many
cooks, I think it can be a terrible mess.  Mozilla can be really messy.
 The source code can be a mess and one individual can steer the whole
thing in a bad direction, since there is insufficient collective wisdom
or strong management to prevent him from doing so.  For instance,
"format=flowed" in Mozilla mail/news:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168420 .)

To keep up with the changing demands of the industry, year after year,
requires a decent team of developers and lots of connection to the
diverse user base.  It also requires *rigour* in programming so the
evolving beast is elegant and robust.  (I am not convinced this
necessarily occurs in the larger commercial products as the years go by.)

I don't know what is happening with Windoze-based Protel these days, but
some years ago I looked at it and found the whole thing way too confusing.

I have a general distrust of any program with lots of graphics which is
supposed to do something exact.  Energy spent on eye candy, especially
by programmers of the video game generation, seems often to be found in
association with bugginess.  This makes me suspicious of any of these
complex programs until they prove to be elegant and substantial.

Protel seems to be the most prominent program here in Australia - DOS
Protel Autotransformer and Schematic was written in Tasmania, largely by
one person, I think.  My PCB manufacturer is perfectly happy using old
DOS Autotransformer files.  I haven't tried surface mount yet, and am
hoping to avoid it.  However, before doing any major new project, which
was intended to last for a decade or two, I would probably want to
choose something other than my 17 year old DOS Protel system, if only
because the new project will probably involve some surface mount, and I
want to use good libraries for that, and not have to develop my own
which I can't use outside the old program.

Here are some Google hit numbers and USD$ for a schematic and PCB package:

  Protel     194,000
= Lutetium     103,000   http://www.altium.com  ($ - too much BS for me
                                               to wade through in a
                                               few minutes.  Rumoured
                                               to be $9000.)

  OrCad      225,000   http://www.orcad.com   ($ - no prices, have to
                                               contact resellers.)

  Eagle PCB  167,000   http://www.cadsoft.de  (USD$898)


The Eagle schematic and PCB programs get a good rap, but not the autorouter.

  http://bbs.circuitcellar.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8470&

That's fine - autorouters sound great to newbies, but suck in practice.
  I hope not to be doing vastly complex digital boards, and I don't see
the use of autorouting an analogue board.  I guess there must be some
truly useful autorouters, such as for designing 10 layer laptop
motherboards - but the hyper-intelligent beings who develop and maintain
such beasts won't sell them for a few hundred dollars.

I don't want something which tries to extend itself into simulation or
into FPGA design.  That is too complex for my needs and sounds like a
nightmare to learn - and highly likely to be full of bugs.

It needs to be something pretty well accepted in the industry and under
continuing development, with an active user base.  Is there such a thing
as people sharing their libraries?  Its such a pain entering the details
of some large chip - maybe someone else has done it before.

Here's the Eagle page for sharing libraries:


http://www.cadsoft.de/cgi-bin/download.pl?page=/home/cadsoft/html_public/download.htm.en&dir=pub/userfiles/libraries

760 libraries, many of them downloaded tens of thousands of times.  This
alone is a good reason to use Eagle or some other widely used program,
compared to some potentially fabulous other program which has a smaller
or less helpful user base.

Probably Eagle's freebie version gains it lots more loyal and generous
users than the big iron all-singing-all-dancing
costs-as-much-as-a-trip-around-the- world Orcads and Protels.

 - Robin  http://www.firstpr.com.au/rwi/dfish/